An Introduction to AI Generated Art

Over the last decade, there has been a sharp increase in the use and development of AI or Machine Learning systems in many areas of our lives. Recently, large advances have been made in AI generated art. One of the biggest advances came with the release of the “DALL-E-2” AI art generation program. This program allows users to submit descriptions of artwork they would like to create as well as specify an art style/medium for the piece. The AI then uses neural networks to create a picture matching your prompt. This allows users with little or no artistic experience to create beautiful works of art without the need to hire an artist.

As you can imagine, these developments have not gone unnoticed by the Art community and many artists are afraid that these programs will put them out of a job. Further, these programs learn how to create art in different styles by searching the internet for images based on their meta data. This means that artist currently have no way to restrict the use of their art in these programs aside from not uploading it. You can read more about these issues here.

This isn't to say that the technology itself is bad or that you shouldn't use it. It's just important that we keep these things in mind when developing and using these types of software to help make sure we uphold our moral obligation as users of the Internet